Death of an Intern
by Ramos
Summary: Richard Castle wakes up to a morning after the night before - and a dead intern.  Only he doesn't remember anything about how she ended up dead.  Beckett and the gang have to prove that he's innocent - but Castle isn't entirely sure that he IS innocent.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Richard Castle, Kate Beckett, Roy Montgomery, and the rest of the crew are the property of ABC. I don't own Castle or any of its characters.**

**AN: While I don't own anything to do with Castle, I want to put my vote in for Nathan Fillion to play Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie!**

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

The image was blurry. Part of it was dark, and part of it was… less dark. Blinking did nothing to help, and Richard Castle let out an involuntary groan as the pounding in his head synchronized with his heartbeat and threatened to shake his skull apart. Eventually, the blur resolved itself into a wooden rectangle of some sort.

Swallowing against a terribly dry throat, he reached up to rub at his eyes, only to let out a hiss in pain at the ache in his right hand. Flexing it cautiously, Castle lifted his head up and promptly banged it on the underside of a coffee table. Both hands automatically flew to his new injury as he flopped back down, making 'ow, ow, ow,' noises - very quietly, however, since his brain was in grave danger of melting out his ears from the massive headache.

Holding perfectly still allowed the pain to ebb down to merely excruciating, and he let out a sigh as he relaxed. As he did so, his hands slid down from his forehead and trailed across the bare skin of his chest.

He frowned. Castle never slept without a shirt on, not since his daughter was a small child. He'd gotten in the habit of wearing pajamas during Alexis' early childhood, when she was apt to climb into bed with him in the middle of the night, and he'd just never stopped.

Slowly carefully, he tilted his head to one side, managed to plant his left elbow firmly enough to lever himself up and out from under the coffee table, and looked around. The living room was nice. Small, but this was New York and not everyone could afford a huge apartment. The carpet was white, the furnishings second-hand Ikea, and a couch of some sort loomed behind him.

Looking down, he assessed himself. No shirt. His slacks were down around his lower legs, leaving him naked but for the dark boxer shorts. At the end of the accordion-pleated wool blend were a pair of his favorite Caponi shoes, still attached to his feet.

The pounding in his head made him whimper – a manly whimper, but still. Fortunately the light from the windows was fairly dim. That, along with the faint sounds of traffic, led him to the conclusion that it was still fairly early in the morning. The question was, what morning?

Moving gingerly, he pulled the pants – with belt still in the loops – up over his knees. With great effort he rolled to his side, doing his best to keep his right hand from coming into contact with the floor, and with the help of the coffee managed to get vertical enough to pull his pants up all the way. He had just zipped them when he saw the body.

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

Captain Montgomery still hadn't said a word to her, other than a terse order to come with him as soon as he'd seen her walking in this morning. Kate Beckett knew him well enough to know now was not the time to ask stupid questions, so she kept her mouth shut and held on to the chicken bar while he drove across town with the lights and sirens blaring. When they stopped at a modest apartment building, she frowned thoughtfully and followed as her normally phlegmatic supervisor slammed out of the car and walked towards the knot of police cars, ambulance, and coroner's van that clogged the entrance of the building.

Hurrying to catch up with him, she was barely in time to hear him demand that someone tell him what was going on, right the hell now.

"Captain Montgomery," answered one of the men milling about. He had a badge and gun hanging below the spare tire around his waist, but Kate had been a cop more than long enough to recognize a fellow detective. "I'm Detective Blake. I didn't expect you to drive all the way out here."

"You call me, telling me you're arresting one of my own, and you don't think I'd come over personally? What would you expect your captain to do?"

Blake shrugged. "He's not really one of yours, but I figured you'd rather call the mayor before the papers get wind of this."

"Okay, what's going on?" Kate finally asked, exasperated.

"It's not that complicated, Detective _Heat_," drawled the other man. "We got a man and a woman, too much to drink, the boyfriend lost it… so now we have a dead girlfriend."

"Dead girlfriend?" she echoed, ignoring the slur. He knew damned good and well her name was Beckett, but she'd gotten used to hearing that occasionally from other cops.

"Looks pretty basic – they had a fight, things got out of hand, and he beat her to death."

"How do you know the boyfriend did it?" she asked.

Any further questions dried up in her throat as she caught sight of Richard Castle. While she had occasionally wondered what he looked like without his two hundred dollar shirts, she never expected to see him bare-chested, eyes down, walking between two uniformed officers with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Behind her, Blake made a disgusted sound. "Because he was still there. Hell, he's the one who called 911."

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

At the police precinct, Montgomery and Beckett were allowed to watch, out of courtesy, but were not allowed to ask questions as Richard Castle was processed. They could only stand vigil as a technician swabbed the inside of his mouth, obviously being less than gentle as Castle winced away from the jab of the cotton swab. He was stoic, even cooperative, as the same hack-handed tech took blood, snapping the rubber tourniquet unnecessarily tight. Kate glanced away, granting Castle at least a shred of dignity, catching only a glimpse of his back as they forced him to undress, taking his slacks, shoes, socks, and underwear for evidence. The next time she saw him was through the one-way glass of an interrogation room as Blake read him his Miranda rights and started questioning him about the dead girl in the apartment.

Though she hated to admit it, the few times she'd seen Richard Castle wearing an early morning scruffy look, he was invariably adorable in his disheveled state. This morning, however, he looked … lost. His eyes were dark with confusion and pain, his voice rough and lacking any of his usual bounce and vigor. He seemed incredibly vulnerable, dressed in the set of too-short orange scrubs provided, his feet bare on the cold linoleum, and it took all of Kate's self control to stand there, chewing on the cuticle of her thumb, as he was questioned about the murder of the young woman named Karen Randall.

"So tell me again – what happened last night?" Blake began.

Castle swallowed. "I was at a pre-launch party for my agent."

"Your agent's name?"

"Paula. Paula Berkowitz."

"Launch party, eh? You gotta new book coming out?"

"Not mine. New kid on the block. I stopped by as a favor to Paula."

"What time was that?"

Montgomery nodded in approval as Kate flipped out her ever-present notebook and started taking notes. They listened as Castle outlined showing up at the party, fashionably late at eleven pm, doing the obligatory schmoozing that a publicity conscious agent demanded of him, including meeting the new author, his agent, her people, his people… and dozens of other people who seemed to have no other purpose in life but to go from one party to another.

"So how long had you been dating Karen Randall?"

Castle shook his head. "I wasn't dating her. I only met her last night."

"So, one night stand…"

"I don't do one night stands," Castle interrupted, showing the first signs of life since his arrest. "Not anymore," he added in a softer tone.

"Uh-huh." Blake was obviously not convinced. "So what time did you leave?"

"Maybe one, one-thirty."

"And you left with Karen Randall."

Yes," he admitted softly. "She had had quite a bit to drink. Paula was worried about her getting home. asked if I would make sure she got home safely. "

"Why didn't your agent take care of Miss Randall herself? She worked for her, after all."

"Paula was hosting the party," he explained evenly. "I was leaving, and she asked me to do her a favor."

"So you did yourself a favor, took the girl home, and then you raped her."

"No!" Castle denied immediately. "That girl was like – twenty, or something. She's Paula's intern. I would never…" He trailed off. "I have a daughter not much younger than she was."

"So you like them young," Blake supplied, ignoring his suspect's glare. "So what happened when you got her home?"

"I helped her get up the stairs," Castle continued. "She was starting to sober up, but she was having trouble, dropped her keys. I got her door unlocked for her."

"And then you went in," Blake prompted.

"I got her a glass of water, and…" Castle paused, thinking hard. "I remember I asked if she needed some aspirin or something. She said that would be great… There was some in her kitchen cabinet, so I got her some of those too."

"And then?"

"I gave her the pills, and the water." He frowned.

"What?" Blake demanded, sensing the hesitation.

"The bottle. I dropped it, knocked the pills everywhere…"

"And?"

"It was funny… I remember – we started laughing, and I tried to pick them up…"

In the observation booth, Beckett and Montgomery both leaned forward, listening hard.

"It was so funny," Castle said softly. "I'm not sure why, but we were both giggling about them…" He trailed off again, and suddenly he face registered several emotions at once; shock, anger, surprise, and horror.

"Tell me," Blake pressured. "Tell me what happened, Castle."

"We were kissing. One second we were laughing, and then we were kissing. I pushed her…" He looked up, confused, and even though she knew he could not see her, Beckett could swear that he was looking straight into her eyes, desperately begging her to help him.

"I don't remember…" he whispered.

Blake's voice was hard and flat, however. "You pushed her down. You pushed her down on the sofa, and you assaulted her."

"NO! I pushed – I pushed her away!"

"No, you didn't, Castle. You raped her. And when she fought you, you strangled her."

"No. No. NO!" Rick Castle's head shook back and forth frantically, his throat working up and down as though suppressing the urge to vomit, but Blake pressed on mercilessly, leaning over the table to get in his suspect's face.

"You did that, Rick Castle. You pushed her down, and you had sex with her, and then you killed her. We found you inside a locked apartment, half-naked, with a half-naked girl. A very _dead_ half-naked girl. You're looking at ten to twenty for murder in the second and forcible rape."

After a very long silence, Rick Castle finally looked away from the detective. "I'd like to call my lawyer now."

~?~~?~~~?~~?~


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Richard Castle, Kate Beckett, Roy Montgomery, and the rest of the crew are the property of ABC. I don't own Castle or any of its characters.**

**AN: Wow, it's been a while since I've done this. I forgot the disclaimer in my first chapter (fixed it now) and forgot how much fun it was to write and post. Just so you know, this story will be pretty much a 'standard episode' fic, so don't expect to see it end with Rick and Kate going wild. (Sorry!)**

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

"Okay, just what the hell happened last night?" Kate demanded of her Captain as they left the observation room. The older man looked nearly as angry as she'd ever seen him, which meant they were about neck and neck.

"I don't know much more than you do, detective. I got the call this morning and grabbed you – I knew you'd want to be in on this."

"You're damned right I do," she told him, throwing down her notebook. "Seriously – Castle? Rape and murder? Next they'll be telling us the Easter Bunny is out mugging joggers in Central Park."

"There's nothing cute and fuzzy about this, detective," announced Blake as he came in to the bullpen. "Your boy Castle called 911 this morning to report a dead body. He was there in the apartment with the girl. He let the cops in. He admits being with her last night." The tone in his voice indicated he thought it was all self-explanatory.

"He admitted taking her home," Montgomery clarified. "He seemed pretty sure he hadn't had sex with her."

"The rape was pretty obvious," Blake countered. "First uniform on the scene said the vic's clothing had been torn off, pretty brutally, too. They also found two unused condoms scattered around the sofa, along with some brown pills that look like generic Advil. Your pal Castle may not be willing to tell us what really happened, but his coat was on the kitchen chair and his shirt was found _under_ the victim's body."

Kate blinked against the sudden dizziness. That meant that his shirt had to have come off before the girl was raped. While she was still alive.

"It seems pretty clear to me, Captain. Castle may be a special pet to your precinct, and he may be pals with the Mayor, but we've got him dead to rights and he is going down for this crime."

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

Since they wouldn't let either of them talk to Castle, not until his lawyer arrived, Beckett and Montgomery headed back to the station. Esposito and Ryan greeted them the moment they entered the squad room, their faces more serious than Kate had seen either of them for some time.

"We heard," Esposito started.

Like a good partner, Kevin Ryan finished the thought. "So what are we going to do about it?"

Kate swept past them, tossing her coat onto her chair, not trusting herself to speak at the moment.

"Captain Vincent over at the 23rd will have a cow if we step on his people's toes," Montgomery declared. "But frankly, I don't give a rat's ass. Richard Castle is one of our own, and we are not letting this go down without a fight."

"He's got a high dollar lawyer, right?" Esposito asked.

"Yeah," Kate confirmed, running her fingers through her hair. "But Blake seems to think this is open and shut. He's just gonna go through the paces. We on the other hand, are going to shake this case down until its teeth fall out."

"But we'll – try - not to step on any toes," she assured her supervisor.

"Whatever it takes, detective. I want your best work on this."

"You got it," she promised.

Behind her, Esposito and Ryan knocked fists with each other, silently affirming the same promise.

An hour later, Kate was being shown into Paula Berkowitz's sleek office. Leather and chrome and glass comprised most of the office, along with pale wooden panels that reflected the light from the high windows. One of the walls, beside the fancy desk, displayed a gallery of headshots. It only took a moment for her to identify Richard Castle, on the top row, his younger face beaming proudly.

"That's one of his first dustcover shots," Paula volunteered, her bracelets jangling as she pulled a tissue and dabbed at the corner of her eyes. Beckett didn't see any tears, but the woman was visibly upset.

Paula Berkowitz was fairly tall, even taller in high heels. She reminded Beckett of an early generation Barbie doll with her long oval face, black hair pulled back into a sleek tail, and the eyeliner above her wide, large eyes applied with a generous hand. The designer dress and shoes completed the image. Like a veteran party goer, she showed no ill effects of having been up for all hours the night before.

"What can you tell me about the party?"

"I told that other cop all this on the phone," Paula told her with a sigh. Kate rolled her eyes; of course Blake hadn't bothered to come interview her in person. "It was a pre-launch party – we announced the new book and the schedule… You've been to a couple of Ricky's, you know how it goes."

"I know there's a lot of drinking and a lot of people, all looking to see and be seen. It's a publicity event."

"Of course it's about publicity," Paula declared, as if Kate were stupid. "God knows, Ricky could use some, but him getting arrested for murder is NOT the kind of publicity he needs."

"I thought any publicity was good publicity. What kind did you think Castle should have had?"

"Anything! Go skinny dipping at Central Park, get a stalker, have an affair with a married woman," she declared, pulling several more tissues. "Do you know how hard Gina and I worked to get Mr. Mom to join the party life after he married her?"

The Brooklynite came out when Paula spoke the name of Castle's second ex, making it sound like 'Gene-er.' " He used to be good for a front page several times a year. He was finally getting back into the swing of things when he and Gina got back together, and then bam, he dumps her and goes back to you. The man hasn't even had a hot date in months. Mr. Rogers had a more active social life."

"Castle's name was Rodgers," Kate reminded her, confused.

Paula waved the handful of tissues. "No, the kid show, remember, that guy that wore the sweater and stayed home and played with his toys. Rick Castle hasn't done anything outrageous since he started hanging out with you. I told him he should have just slept with you and gotten it out of his system."

Kate blinked at this, but Paula was on a roll. "I had to play the guilt card just to get him to show up the other night. Mr Goody two shoes was going to stay home and call his kid." The agent leaned over her desk, outraged. "You know, even that daughter of his – most celebrities with teenagers have had to bail their kids out at least twice by the time they're her age. Not little Miss Perfect."

"Alexis is a good kid, and Rick's a good father," Kate told her, annoyed at the woman's attitude. Compelled by something she couldn't identify, more words fell from her mouth, words straight from her heart. "He's a good man."

Paula's nervous energy suddenly deserted her, and she sank down into her fancy chair. "I know. That's why this doesn't make any sense."

"No, it doesn't," she agreed softly. "So, tell me about Karen."

"She's – she was - an intern here. Worked here during the summers and when she wasn't at school. An agency this size, we have three or four interns every year. She was supposed to graduate from college this summer, and if everything worked out, we might have offered her a full time position."

"So she was young. What, twenty-one, twenty-two?" Paula confirmed the latter, and Kate wrote it down, thinking it was a bit on the young side for what she knew of his dating habits. "To your knowledge, was she dating Castle?"

"I already told you, he wasn't dating anyone. And if he was dating one of my interns, I would have known about it. Besides, I introduced her to him just last night, along with the other interns." She smiled indulgently. "We have to let the kiddies play with the grown-ups sometimes."

"Was she dating anyone that you know of?"

"No. When would she have time? No, she never mentioned a guy, and believe me, this girl liked to talk. Part of the job, really."

Kate nodded. The life of a New York intern was notoriously grueling, despite the field. Anyone who'd watched 'The Devil Wears Prada' knew that.

"Gotcha. So, who are the other interns?"

"Sarah Pascelli, Clark Williams… oh, and –um," Paula snapped her fingers as she dredged at her memory. "Morty. Mordecai Nakamura. But Morty wasn't there last night – his cousin was having a bar mitzvah."

Kate raised an eyebrow at the combination Jewish and Japanese, but wrote them down anyway. "But everyone else was at the party last night. Who else was there?"

"I'll get you the invite list," Paula promised.

"Did anything stand out about either Karen or Castle's behavior last night?"

"You mean other than Ricky hiding from me all night? Of course, that's not unusual, he's maybe good for an hour or so at those things, then he gets bored. He bores easily."

Kate suppressed a smile. "I know. What about Karen? I understand she had had quite a bit to drink."

"Probably."

"Probably? Do you have any reason to think she was doing drugs?"

Paula shrugged, setting her large earrings jangling. "No idea. Hey, I don't supply, but I don't police. Regular work hours, they gotta be on their best behavior. After hours, everybody cuts loose a little bit."

"Did Karen have a habit of cutting loose?"

"Now and then," Paula admitted, giving another half shrug. "Maybe. It depends. This is a pretty competitive business, and interns are at the bottom of the food chain. There's a lot of stress, but a lot of opportunity if you're ambitious enough." She gestured around her opulent office, as if it proved her point.

"And was Karen ambitious?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, she was. She reminded me of myself, back then."

Kate didn't really want to ask the next question, and really didn't want to hear the answer, but it was necessary. "Would you have slept with one of your clients?"

"As an intern, or as an agent?" Paula asked archly, then threw up her hand as if to say it didn't really matter. "Either way, it would depend on the client."

"Would you have slept with Rick Castle, if you were in Karen's place last night?"

Paula gave her an 'are you kidding' look. "In a heartbeat."

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

As she left Paula's office, the woman pointed Kate towards the office where she could find the other interns. She found Sarah Pascelli almost immediately. The girl was small and dark-haired, wearing a tweed skirt and white blouse that would not have been out of place in a Catholic school. Her attitude was also a direct conflict with the ultra-modern, stylish surroundings.

"I hate it here," she confessed almost immediately. "It's always about who's seeing whom, who's in the tabloids… Karen loved it, though."

"She liked the glamour and the glitz, huh?"

"She was a whore for it – literally. Every male client who came through here, she would lean over to show her boobs, flirt with them. She made it pretty obvious she was willing to take care of any of our clients' needs." The air quotes she made around 'needs' weren't necessary for Kate to understand what she was implying.

"What about Rick Castle?"

"He's not here very often – I don't even remember when he was here last. He's in the middle of a three book deal. There are rumors that they might make 'Naked Heat' into a movie as well, but the first one isn't even in the can yet so that's just rumor."

"But Karen liked the clients – the male clients."

"It was like a game to her, seeing how many of them she could sleep with. She wasn't very discreet – Paula even spoke to her about it, and you know how much she loves publicity for her clients."

"What about drugs? Was Karen using?"

Sarah's eyes shifted as she tilted her head to one side, obviously trying to be fair. "Yeah, she partied, but not all the time. I never saw her high, at least not at work. Hung over, but not high. She was determined to get hired on in this shark tank."

"But you're not," Kate guessed.

"No. I'm not cut out for this work. It's very superficial. I think I'm done with superficial. Especially after last night."

By the time she thanked Sarah for her information, it was well after lunchtime and Kate wanted only two things – an update on Castle and lunch. Not necessarily in that order. However, just as she was walking out into the main corridor, Sarah called out to a young man who was headed the same way.

"Clark – Clark Williams. You said you wanted to talk to both of us, right?"

Williams was a head shorter than Kate, which wasn't unusual, but his stocky build was diminished by the heavy sweater he wore. He was made even less intimidating by the obvious cold he was nursing. His eyes and nose were red and unlike his supervisor, the tissues in his hand were getting serious use as he sniffled and coughed. Kate instinctively kept her distance from him, watching him as he huddled into his coat and pulled on his gloves, obviously miserable.

"Sorry," he said after nearly coughing on her. "I was headed home."

"I understand," Kate told him. "I'll try to make this quick. Did you know Karen well?"

"Yeah. I mean, when we worked together. They keep us pretty busy here."

"Did you see her at the party last night?"

Clark nodded into his tissue, stifling a sneeze.

"Did you see her with anyone?"

"You mean, did I see her with Richard Castle. I already told this to the other cop. I saw them talking at the bar."

Kate stopped short. "Was he talking to her, or was she talking to him?"

Clark frowned at her and pushed up his glasses. "I don't understand the question."

"Never mind. What time did you see them?"

"I don't know - before midnight, I think. It was a big party, lots of celebrities there."

"Did you see them leave?"

When he denied having seen them leave together, Kate gave him the standard 'if you think of anything else, give me a call,' and headed back to the precinct.

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

Kate made quick work of her fast food burger as Ryan and Esposito brought her up to date on the work they'd done that morning. Kevin Ryan started off, flipping open his notebook and reading as he talked.

"Berkowitz had her car service provide about a half dozen cars for ferrying people back and forth to the party last night. They confirm picking Castle up at his place and delivering him to the party around eleven. The valet says it was around one-fifteen when he came down with the victim, and the service's records agree. They say they drove to the address the girl gave them, and Castle asked them to wait, said he'd only be a few minutes."

Javier Esposito continued the narrative as he stole one of Kate's fries, narrowly missing the smack she aimed at his pilfering fingers. "The driver says it was more than a half hour later when he gets a call from a man who says he's Richard Castle and they will be dispensing with their services for the evening. So he left."

"The interesting bit is when we talked to the neighbors," Ryan added. "The reported hearing a loud argument at around one forty-five or so in the morning. It woke them up."

Kate frowned. "Castle never said anything about arguing with the victim."

"Get this – they say it was a regular occurrence," Esposito told her.

"If Castle wasn't seeing her, how could it be regular?" she asked, bewildered.

"I even asked for some specific dates, and if they ever saw who she argued with. The never saw the man, but – of the two dates they were absolutely sure of, one of them was around nine in the evening on New Year's Eve."

Kate stared at him. "Castle threw a party at his place that night. He was there, that night. We all were."

"Exactly."

"So who was she arguing with?"

Ryan smirked at her. "If I had to guess – I'd say the man who killed her."

That earned got several 'duh' looks from his co-workers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Richard Castle, Kate Beckett, Roy Montgomery, and the rest of the crew are the property of ABC. I don't own Castle or any of its characters.**

**AN: The murder occurred on a Tuesday. Castle is arrested on Wednesday AM. Chapters 1 & 2 were set for Wednesday. This chapter begins Thursday.**

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

When the elevator doors opened at the 12th Precinct, Richard Castle followed Kate Beckett far more reluctantly than he ever had in the past.

"I thought you said you were taking me home," he complained softly. As usual, he wore an expensive button-down shirt and even more expensive suit jacket, but despite being clean, sober, and well dressed, his discomfort was apparent.

"You are home," Kate told him emphatically. Once they reached her desk, the rest of her team quickly descended.

"Hey, Castle!" Javier Esposito put a deliberately jovial tone in his voice. "I see you made bail – Good for you."

"How much?" Ryan inquired casually, as if asking after a parking ticket.

"You wouldn't believe it," Kate told them, rolling her eyes.

"He was lucky to get it at all," added Captain Montgomery, coming out of his office as well. "I hear the mayor actually called the judge and told him to be reasonable. The DA was trying to make him out as a flight risk."

"Good to have friends," Ryan observed.

A small smile bent the corner of Rick's bleak expression. "Something like this, it really tells you who your friends are."

"Damned straight," Esposito affirmed.

"How's your family handling all this?" Montgomery asked him, his tone going serious.

Rick hesitated. "Alexis is in California with her mother for spring break. My mother went with her."

"Didn't you call them?" Kate was shocked.

"No. I don't want them to worry."

"Don't you think they'd rather hear this from you? Not the tabloids?"

Behind his partner's back, Eposito quickly flipped over the newspaper that lay on his desk so that it hid the mugshot and headline proclaiming 'Famous Mystery Writer Arrested For Real Life Murder!'

Wincing slightly, Rick leaned one hip onto the edge of Kate's desk. "No. Not until we know more. They'll be fine."

His tone of voice was hardly convincing, but Kate recognized the futility of arguing with him. Instead, she looked at him with concern.

"Are you okay?"

"My ribs are sore. And my hand," he added, holding it up momentarily. They all caught a glimpse of the black and purple knot on the back of his right hand.

"Do you need a doctor? Why didn't they take a look at that over at the 123rd when they booked you?"

"I'm fine. I don't need a doctor," He denied testily.

"It might not be a bad idea," Montgomery insisted. "Looks like you might have broken something."

"At least let Lanie take a look at you," Kate added. Before he could reply, another voice joined them.

"Did I hear my name used in vain?"

For once, Lanie Parish was dressed not in her scrubs but in a very chic suit and black heels.

"Hey, don't you look nice," Kate told her friend. "What brings you up here?"

"My Thursday-going-to-court best," Lanie told her. "Fool lawyer thought he could get me to throw doubt on my own report. Can you believe that? And what brings me up here is him."

The ME gave Richard Castle a gimlet stare, which made the author stand up straight, suddenly nervous. To his surprise, the smaller woman swept forward and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly.

"What was that for?" he asked numbly, after she released him.

"You looked like you could use one, baby."

"I thought you were her baby," Ryan asked his partner in a low voice. Esposito didn't respond, but elbowed him hard.

"I also came up to add something to your board." With the regal bearing of a princess, Lanie veered over to the whiteboard and picked up the dry-erase marker. "I got a call from the ME over where they took Karen Randall. They ran Castle's blood this morning."

The big board dominated the open space, and as usual had a headshot at one end under the word 'Victim.' The picture was of a very pretty blonde, her smile suspended in time while her body lay on a slab somewhere miles away. The suspect lane had Castle's picture from his book jacket, albeit with a large question mark next to it. Underneath his picture, Lanie wrote one word. Rohypnol.

"Ruffies?" asked Esposito. Someone drugged him?"

"Someone drugged him a lot, probably twice what was necessary. You're a big guy, Castle, but whoever did this could have killed you with that dose."

Rick Castle frowned. "I thought Ruffies made you drunk."

"It does – especially in conjunction with alcohol. But it takes 15 to 20 minutes to take effect. How much did you drink that night?"

"Not that much – not even a buzz. It was pretty boring, really."

"How much is not much?" Kate demanded.

Rick thought for a minute. "I got a scotch and soda when I got there. I did the rounds of people mingling for about an hour. Then I went to the bar, ordered a beer and I grabbed a bowl of pretzels. I spent the rest of my time there, maybe another hour or so."

"With one beer?" Lanie clarified, sounding dubious, but he nodded, holding up one finger.

"You talked to the victim at the bar," Kate prompted, already knowing the answer.

"Yes. Paula had introduced us earlier. She came over a couple of times for refills. She was - friendly."

"Very friendly?"

"Yes. But she never stayed long."

Kate's mouth went to one side like it did when she was thinking hard. "If she was being that friendly, why did she keep leaving?"

The author's eyes dropped to the floor, making him look like a five year old.

"Castle?"

"I was playing Angry Birds. On my phone," he admitted truculently. Kate closed her eyes in disbelief, but the others snickered.

"Then what happened? What made you decide to leave?"

Rick sighed. "She did. Karen. She came back to the bar for another drink, but she was already pretty loaded. She was being… less than subtle," he admitted, looking uncomfortable at his admission.

"I've never been one to blame a victim, but I'm beginning to get the feeling that the girl there had designs on your virtue that night, Castle."

To Kate's disappointment he failed to respond to her teasing, remaining far too somber to be the same man who seemed to live to drive her crazy for the past two years. "Okay, here's the big question. Why did you take her home? You said she was being pretty obvious – don't you think that was asking for trouble?"

"Paula asked me to," he told her. "I went to say goodnight, thanks for dragging me to another really boring event, and she was talking to one of the other interns about how out of control Karen was getting. When I said I was leaving, she asked me to do her a favor and get Karen out of there before she made a scene – a larger scene – than she already had."

"And you'd do that? For your agent?" Montgomery asked.

"I owe Paula a lot. She owes me, too. We've worked together since Derek Storm hit the big time. And basically, she said that since I was being useless at the moment, at least for this new writer, I owed her a favor."

'So you did it as a favor to your publicist," the captain pressed.

"Paula seems pretty hard core, I know," Rick told them, sincerity clear in his voice. "It's a hard core business. But she actually treats her people like human beings, not raw meat. That's one of the reasons I keep her as my agent."

"So you were volunteered," Kate summed up neatly. She looked at the board and the new writing on it. "You had to have drunk something else. Ruffies is almost always put into a drink of some sort. Did you have anything at Karen Randall's apartment?"

"The champagne toast," Rick suddenly declared. "Just as we were leaving, they announced a toast to Bobby Whatshisface – the new guy – and his book."

"You stayed for the toast," Kate repeated, taking up the marker again and putting it on the timeline. "What time?"

"It was one o'clock, I think," Rick replied, thinking. "Karen was excited when they started passing out the champagne. She said she'd been working with this guy since Paula signed him. So, we did the toast, and we left."

He fell silent, obviously thinking.

"What?"

"Karen wanted to do the toast – she asked me to go get her coat while she went to get us the glasses of champagne."

"And that's when she slipped you the drug," Montgomery concluded, showing he hadn't lost his detective abilities while sitting at a captain's desk.

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

Two hours later, Rick wandered back to the bullpen, his jacket slung over his right arm. It almost hid the white plastic splint Lanie had put over his right wrist and hand.

"Hey, you're back," Esposito observed as he hung up the phone. Ryan joined them, and from across the room, Beckett caught the scent of new information in the air. All four of them converged in front of the murder board.

"I called the catering company and talked to a couple of their people. The bartender backs up your story – one beer. He also remembers you playing with your phone and how our victim was coming on to you every time she came by for a refill."

"Any chance on testing those champagne glasses?" Ryan asked.

Esposito made a buzzing sound. "The caterers said their clean up crew were done and loaded by four am and the dishes run by six. There's no way to get either a print or drug residue off a glass to connect her to Castle."

"Damn," Kate said softly.

Rick said nothing. He was gazing at the picture of Karen Randall, lost in thought.

"So," she began, trying to draw him back into the conversation. This subdued version of Rick Castle was making her uncomfortable. "You took Karen Randall home. You remember getting her upstairs. You remember getting her some water."

"Yeah. So?"

"When do your memories get fuzzy?"

Rick eased backwards, hiking his hip up to half sit on the desk behind him. "I started feeling dizzy in the kitchen, and it really hit me when I brought her the painkillers."

"Do you remember kissing her?"

"She kissed me," he corrected. "And only vaguely."

"Do you remember taking off your shirt?"

He scowled. "No."

"Well, if you passed out, you wouldn't remember anything," Ryan offered. "Unfortunately, amnesia and lack of inhibitions is a major side effect of getting hit with Ruffies. Things happen, you just don't remember it."

Javier Esposito stuck his hands into his pockets, looking unhappy. "The fact that he was drugged didn't mean that he didn't do it."

Kate shot him a disbelieving look. "Oh, come on."

"No, he's right," Castle pointed out morosely. "Just like he said, the drug lowers a person's inhibitions. And it causes," he paused, trying to remember the exact quote from Lanie, "an extreme state of intoxication. It would have been as though I were really drunk."

"But it takes 15 to twenty minutes to take effect," she countered. "And you had a belly full of pretzels. Soaked up that alcohol, maybe even delayed the effect."

Ryan butted in before they could start arguing. "Karen Randall's apartment was only ten minutes away from the party. You got her there, took her upstairs, intending on tucking her into bed, all perfectly innocent."

"And then, bam!" Esposito continued. "The drug hits you hard."

"And then what happened?" Rick asked. "Did I kiss her again? Did she change her mind?"

"We think someone else might have been there that night," Kate told him.

"Pretty damned sure," Javier added. "The neighbors heard loud arguing, but well after you got there. Probably after you passed out."

Rick Castle merely closed his eyes, his left hand absently rubbing at the vivid purple knot still visible on his right knuckle. "And maybe something bad happened," he muttered.

"Castle, we all believe you're innocent," Ryan told him. "Hell, this could even be a frame job."

Abruptly his eyes flew open, pinning all three detectives with a furious glare. "How do you know that? How can you be sure? I woke up with my pants around my freaking ankles! That didn't just happen by accident! I was in the same room with a girl who came on to me – who says I didn't say 'what the hell' and just go with the flow! Maybe I did do it! Maybe I went 'Lost Weekend' on that girl, and raped her, and then maybe, just maybe, when she resisted, I killed her!"

Startled speechless, the three of them watched as the most carefree person they'd ever known stormed out of the bullpen in utter rage. Kate was the first to react, however, and was behind him only moments later, her long legs catching up to him in the hallway.

"No. No! Hey!"

Kate grabbed at his shoulder, forcing him to a halt and then pushed him against the wall. When he refused to even look at her, she stepped in close and caught his face in her hands.

"You listen to me, Rick Castle. You may be many things – annoying, irritating, frustrating, thoughtless… but you are not a killer."

"You don't know that," he told her, his voice a low growl. To her surprise, he grabbed both her wrists with one of his larger hands and pulled them down from his face, trapping them against his chest and abruptly turning the tables on her. Suddenly, Kate was the one pinned to the wall by his body. She could feel his heart beating, rapid and strong under her hands, and despite her desire to ignore it, she could feel the contours of strong muscles beneath the starched shirt. Kate was made quite aware that despite her own height and strength, Rick Castle was both bigger and stronger than she. It left her feeling oddly vulnerable. His next words didn't help.

"You don't know what anyone is capable of, under the right circumstances," he told her in a vehement undertone.

Despite herself, Kate found herself remembering the times she'd seen Richard Castle angry- a time not so long ago when he'd tackled a suspect and beaten him unconscious. So much of the time she dismissed the tagalong author as a lightweight, but every now and then he proved that he was in fact a grown man and every bit as capable of violence as any other member of the species.

But even as she reviewed those memories, others took their place. His kindness towards the other people in his life, even his ex-wives. His endless patience with his diva mother, and his utter devotion to his daughter. The exquisitely careful way he'd handled Kate herself as she dealt with the ups and downs of her mother's murder investigation.

She took a short breath, deliberately relaxing muscles that had tensed in her wrists. As if in response, his own grip loosened, softened, and she spread her palms across his chest in a soothing manner. Leaning in even closer to him, she pinned his deep blue eyes with her own, willing him to trust her even when he obviously didn't trust himself.

"And I will believe that up is down and that pigs can fly before I will ever believe that Richard Castle would ever, _ever_, hurt a woman," she told him.

His eyes stared straight into hers, but no matter how hard she willed it, they did not soften. There was no relief in his dark blue pupils, no relaxation in his body. More telling that the rest, though, was the rock-hard muscles of his jaw, flexing in an uneven rhythm and making his normally good-natured face a mosaic of hard, unforgiving angles. His throat worked as he swallowed, and without a word he released her, turning away and was gone before Kate could even think to call after him.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Death of An Intern Chapter 4

Author: Ramos

Disclaimer:

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

After Castle's departure, Kate spent the next hour or so staring at the murder board and pacing. She checked her phone for messages at least ten times, but it remained silent and she was running out of resistance against the urge to call him. Finally she gave up and wandered down to find a sympathetic, female ear. One that would listen to her without wondering when she'd turned into a girl.

Pushing her way through the morgue's swinging doors, she found Lanie Parish back in her scrubs, safety glasses pushed up on her dark hair and going over papers on the desk safely tucked away in a separate office, away from the more noxious and spatter-prone aspects of her job.

"Hey," she said in greeting, leaning in through the door.

"Hey, girl. Where's Castle?"

"He left," Kate told her bluntly.

"He's not doing so well, is he?" Her best friend may have spent most of her time with dead bodies, but she could tell Kate's matter-of-fact tones were just masking her worries.

"No. Not really," she admitted.

Lanie pulled together several pieces of the flotsam covering her desk. "Maybe this will help."

A large photo was placed in front of Beckett, and she found herself picking it up, dispassionately evaluating a close-up of a woman's neck. Several large, dark bruises covered the slender throat, and her practiced eye noted the slight distortion of the crushed larynx.

"Karen Randall's official cause of death was asphyxiation due to strangulation. Estimated TOD is between 2 and 3 am."

Another photo was put into Kate's hands, one of the woman's face. "This photo here shows a number of bruises on her face, especially the cheek bones. Notice that most of the bruises are on the left cheek. Classic backhand pattern on the underside of the cheekbone, indicating a rising blow."

Kate's heart froze, remembering the bruise on Castle's right hand.

"This girl was raped, violently, and she got smacked around several times, but the interesting part is that she was strangled more than once."

"What?"

"My guess is that she had a fight with someone, maybe got hit a few times. Then, she was choked, but not that hard. Probably just enough to subdue her. There are well developed bruises around her neck, down low, and they had time to turn nice and dark before she died. This probably happened after she was hit in the face."

"And then she was raped," Kate added to the timeline.

"Exactly. And after it was all over, her assailant choked her again, but this time with the intent to kill her. We have a second set of bruises around her neck, higher this time, which is why her hyoid bone was broken. This ring of bruising has a full set of all ten fingers."

Lanie rose from her desk and flipped a switch, lighting up several x-rays that hung in the clips over the box light. "Now, let's put those pictures against these."

"What's this?" Kate asked, looking at the almost identical films.

"Castle's hand," Lanie explained. "This one I took several weeks ago, when a certain highly trained contract killer kidnapped two of NYPD's finest," she reminded her friend. "The killer in question was tackled and subdued by your writer boy, who proceeded to beat the living bejesus out of him just moments before he pulled the trigger on you."

"He hurt his hand," Kate remembered aloud. "The EMT wrapped it up…" She herself had helped him re-wrap the bandage as they sat in the back of the ambulance. They'd been talking softly and making jokes to deflect the overwhelming flood of emotions in the aftermath of several truly terrifying days.

Looking closer, she could just make out the line that ran diagonally across the metacarpal of the ring finger. "He broke his hand?"

Lanie shrugged. "Hairline fracture, not really bad. It was bothering him, and he asked if I could check it out. I told him he should at least go to his doctor and have a cast put on, but he claimed it would cramp his autographing style."

Beckett smiled wryly.

The other film was tapped by a short, neatly sculpted fingernail, where the jagged line was much more pronounced. "This one I took the minute I saw the bruising on his hand this morning. He may have hit something that night, but when he did, he re-broke that bone. And whatever he did hit, it was pretty damned hard and it was only once, or else these broken pieces would have had some pretty spectacular dislocation."

Beckett frowned as she put it together. "So he couldn't have hit her – he couldn't have strangled her and make these marks!"

"It would have hurt like a mother when he re-broke that bone," Lanie confirmed. Even if he was drugged out of his mind, which he was, there's no way he could have ignored the pain in his hand to beat on her, let alone strangle her the second time."

Putting her hand on the picture of the woman's face, Lanie continued. "Now, don't forget that a backhand is a cross-blow – so the marks on the left side of the woman's face would have been caused by the assailant's left hand. Castle's left hand hasn't got a mark on it, I checked."

Her friend wasn't finished yet, though. "Now – she fought her attacker, rather violently. She had two jagged, broken fingernails."

"It was a big party," she replied, feeling the same rush she got when pieces of a puzzle came together. "There's no way she went there with bad nails."

"Now, you put those broken fingernails together with the fact that there are absolutely no marks on our boy, no scratches…"

"It means she wasn't fighting Castle. Wait – nails – did they get any DNA?"

"Yep. DNA isn't back yet, but the blood type doesn't match with Castle either."

Kate grinned. This was getting better and better.

"And the kicker on this case?" Lanie pulled out a picture of a man's cotton boxers displayed within a clear plastic baggie, complete with evidence sticker.

"What is this?"

"Castle's boxers. Now that we've answered that important question, we go on to what isn't there. There were absolutely no signs of any semen or a spermicidal compound from a condom – not on his boxers, not on his legs, not on his pants. And, CSU never found a used condom in that entire apartment. It probably got flushed down the toilet, which, by the way, had NO fingerprints on it, not even the victim's. There was a smudged partial on one of the unopened condom packages, but nothing useful."

"So how does a man, who's so trashed he can't even pull up his pants, manage to clean up after himself, flush a toilet, and remember to wipe off his fingerprints?" Kate couldn't keep the triumph out of her voice.

"He doesn't. He just lays there, unconscious."

"He didn't do it."

He didn't do it," Lanie agreed.

Kate closed her eyes, overwhelmed with relief. Not that Rick Castle was innocent – but that she could _prove_ that he was innocent.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Richard Castle, Kate Beckett, Roy Montgomery, and the rest of the crew are the property of ABC. I don't own Castle or any of its characters.**

~?~~?~~~?~~?~

By late afternoon, Kate Beckett had given the good news to Esposito and Ryan, the captain, and left a detailed message with the paralegal who worked for Castle's lawyer. She'd also tried calling the man himself, but after getting his "This is Rick Castle – you know what to do!" for the fifth time she left a voicemail that consisted of a contralto growl of frustration.

The frustration was fast turning into irritation with the suddenly reclusive writer, and Kate was just a little peeved when she pulled up to Castle's building. Amongst the pedestrians near the entrance to the underground parking garage were several individuals who were loitering aimlessly, making her instincts tingle until she noticed the cameras slung around their necks or over their shoulders. One face lit up as she rolled down the window to enter the code for the gate, but didn't have time to get any shots taken before she was easing her car forward and down into the darkened space below the lofts. There were dedicated spots for visitors and she took one without a qualm.

In the elevator she found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet, uncharacteristically eager to see her partner. His bunker mentality was understandable, given the circumstances, but she hoped the good news she carried would help him snap out of it. Just the thought of cheering him up made her previous irritation melt, and she rapped on his door with a flourish.

Long moments passed before the door opened a crack, curtailed by the sensible chain and night lock. It closed and rattled before opening again, wider this time, to reveal Rick Castle in the gap between the door and the frame. He had traded his formal wear for a black t-shirt and jeans, but nothing else had changed.

"Hi," she said, taken aback by his blank, silent reception. Or rather, lack of reception.

Over the years Castle had greeted her appearance at his door in a wide variety of ways; with electronic toys, gleeful mischief, or at least mumbled around a mouthful of some unknown culinary concoction. Even when surprised to see her, he was polite enough to invite her in. This time, for the first time ever, his face did not register any emotion at all at the sight of Kate Beckett on his doorstep. It was unnerving.

"Can I come in?" she asked finally.

Without answering, Rick turned his back on her and made his way through the apartment. Figuring that was as much an invitation as she was going to get, Kate slipped inside and closed the door, locking it out of habit. She took a moment to look around the loft; it was a large space, practically a penthouse, but with a warm and homey feel that reflected the tastes and emotions of the people who lived there.

Today, however, the living area was darkened, the heavy curtains closed over the wide windows and nearly every light off in the place. The only illumination came from the kitchen where he'd retreated to, and a small lamp shining from the office where she knew he did the majority of his work.

"You want a drink?" he asked, his voice deliberately casual, and she walked over to join him at the breakfast bar.

"Whatever you're having," she answered, eyeing the highball glass on the counter. A twist of lime lay amongst the ice cubes and clear liquid.

A second glass joined the first before he clamped a liter bottle under his right elbow, the thumb and first finger of his broken hand holding the neck awkwardly while he twisted the cap with his left. The sound of plastic breaking came to her ears, along with the hiss of released carbonation.

"Straight up or on the rocks?" he joked dryly, pouring a measure of fizzing soda water into the glass.

"Straight's fine," she told him, doing her best not to appear too relieved that he wasn't drinking himself into oblivion. Her efforts were unsuccessful, judging by the sardonic glint in his eye, but he pushed the glass to her anyway.

"So, what brings you here, Detective Beckett? Slumming?" His tone was tinged with acid, and she couldn't really blame him.

"I was worried about you, Castle."

"Don't worry about me," he told her blithely. "That's what I pay my lawyer for."

"Well, hopefully it won't cost you as much as you thought," she started. "I thought you'd like to know what Lanie found out."

"No. Not really," he interrupted. "Look, Beckett, this isn't your case. You should just leave it alone."

"Leave it? You can't be serious."

"Yes," he told her decisively. "Leave it alone, leave me alone. I'm a big boy, and I've been taking care of myself for a long time. I don't need a babysitter, and I don't need you to hold my hand."

"Hey! I came here because I was concerned about you. This is a murder two case!"

Castle made a rude noise. "Please. My lawyer says we can get it down to manslaughter, easy." His ice rattled as he nonchalantly drained his glass.

"What the hell is your problem, Castle? Can't you for once take this seriously?"

"My problem? You want to know what my problem is?" His casual demeanor dropped and his brooding fury was evident in the way he strode around the island of the kitchen and approached the windows. As stealthily as any SWAT team she'd ever seen in action, he put his back to the solid wall and slid down, carefully easing the curtain away from the glass in slow increments.

"You see that?" he asked as she joined him, leaning down to peer over his shoulder. His finger pointed at the building opposite. "Third window down, second from the right."

The window in question was dark, but the last light of the day revealed the round ends of several telephoto lenses. Suddenly the heavy curtains and darkened apartment made a lot more sense.

"And down there? They were three deep when I came home this afternoon, and it's just getting worse," he told her, indicating the people milling around the sidewalk at the street entrance to his building. Some were fans, holding signs. A lot were photographers, both professional and amateur. At least two vans with news channel logos were parked along the street; she thought there might be another but it was just outside the edge of visibility from her vantage point.

"That's my problem, Beckett. The papra-nazis are out in force, and they smell blood. It doesn't really matter who's blood, just that it's on my hands."

"So?" she asked as the both stood up again.

"So? Don't you get it? You need to stay away from this, Kate. You and everyone at the 12th need to stay way, way away from me and Karen Randall's murder."

"No way, Castle. We're not walking away from this. You're my partner, damn it!"

"Oh, come on," he sneered bitterly. "I'm not your partner. At best I'm your comic relief! I'm good for delivering coffee and bearclaws!"

"That's not true!" she denied hotly.

"It is true, and you know it. You should cut your losses and get out. Now." His throat worked as he swallowed hard, and he looked away from her as if she'd already left.

Kate took a deep breath and tried to maintain a steady voice that might get through his thick skull. "That's not the way it works, Castle. You ARE my partner, and you're one of us, and there is no way in hell anyone – ANYONE - at the 12th is gonna walk away. Least of all me."

He shook his head in defiance and walked back to the kitchen. "It has to be that way! You think you know what the press is like? You have no idea. They're like jackals. No, like piranhas! They travel in packs and they pick at every little thing they can find, every shred of flesh they can expose. Your getting involved in this is going to make everyone remember that you're the inspiration for Nikki Heat. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't already. And once they do, they'll come after you, and everyone else down at the 12th."

"We don't care about that…"

"Don't you? Ryan asked me to be one of his groomsmen when he and Jenny get married. I can't wait to see how they explain to her folks that their daughter's wedding is going to be ruined by a rabid pack of paparazzi."

"No," she started, trying to head him off, but he wasn't finished.

"And what happens when someone digs up your past, Beckett? What if they find out about your mother's murder? Wouldn't that look great splashed on the tabloids, 'Nikki's Tragic Loss'," he made a dramatic move with his hand, as if placing the words in the headlines.

She was speechless; the thought of someone exposing her painful history like that hadn't even crossed her mind. Even more astonishing was how far he'd already thought ahead on this game and the lengths to which he'd gone to prevent it happening.

Castle's manic energy suddenly ran out, and he ran his hands through his hair, slouching back against the counter. As she watched his broad shoulders slump down, his bearing as desolate as she'd ever witnessed, Kate realized that it didn't really matter. In a leap of faith, she decided. Richard Castle's future, the future of their peculiar partnership, was worth more than having her mother's death exposed to the world.

"Sit," she ordered, and pushed him into one of the barstools that lined this side of the breakfast bar. Taking the other for herself, she reached out and shoved the back of his chair until he faced her.

"Lanie received some new information from the ME over at the 123rd," she began without giving him a chance to respond. "The photographs and the other info she got show that whoever kill Randall, it wasn't you."

Taking hold of his left hand and turning it palm up, she compared it to the image in her memory. Castle was a large man, something she frequently overlooked since she was so tall herself. His hands were proportionate, and thus wider and longer than her own.

"We don't have a measurement yet, but I'm willing to bet that the bruises on the victim's neck are too small to be made by your hands." She turned it over, examining the back, and then the arm that was bare up to the sleeve of the dark t-shirt. "You don't have any scrapes or bruising on the back of your left hand, and she had marks consistent with a left-handed assailant."

Keeping her fingers tangled in his, she lifted her free hand to his chin. He let her tilt it up, and turn his face to each side, and barely reacted when she briefly pulled down the vee neck of his shirt to reveal another few inches of his neck and collarbones, the skin all one uniform color. "You don't have any scratches, no bite patterns, no sign whatsoever of someone fighting you off. But Karen Randall did fight, and hard. She broke two fingernails scratching the hell out of whoever raped her."

Castle's dark eyebrows drew down together as he processed her words. The desperate manic energy he'd been giving off since she had entered his apartment began to dissipate, replaced by a stillness has he listened to her.

"There was also absolutely no trace evidence on you or your clothes," Kate continued. She squeezed his hand in hers, willing him to believe her. "You didn't rape her, Castle. You didn't kill her."

Staring straight back at her, he finally took a shallow, shaky breath. "You're sure?" he asked.

"Absolutely. I've already called your lawyer. With what we gave him, the D.A. will have to drop the charges."

His hand suddenly left hers, scrubbing across his eyes and forehead as he turned away, his relief so palpable that Kate felt like the newly opened bottle of soda water. Part of her wanted to reach out to him, but she had never been good with emotional displays and Castle's emotions in particular were always hard to deal with.

In that moment Kate Beckett felt like the world's worst friend ever. This man had held her when she cried, backed her up without question, and forked over more money than she made in a year on just the chance of catching her mother's murderer. He supported his mother, single-handedly raised an extraordinary daughter after his first wife walked away. Never once in the three years they'd worked together had he asked her for help, and even when he could most reasonably be considered in need of her help, he'd tried to keep them all away from him to spare them the taint of his case.

As she reached out to touch his shoulder, trying to give him even a shred of the same compassion and comfort he'd given her over the years, he seemed to pull himself together and the moment died. "I think I'm going to be sick," he muttered.

Kate pushed her untouched glass of soda water towards him. "When's the last time you ate?"

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "Haven't been hungry." He drained the glass in a few swallows.

"Are you hungry now?'

"Not exactly."

"Well, I am. C'mon. I'm buying."

Rick opened his mouth to protest; after all, he was the one who made absurd amounts of money. However, he recognized the determined expression on her face, and for once, decided not to argue. Glancing once at the windows, no doubt estimating the size of the crowd downstairs, he nevertheless gathered his keys, wallet, and shoes.

Most surprising of all, however, was when he opened the guest closet near the front door and pulled out a jacket emblazoned with the obnoxious, colorful logo of a nearby pizza parlor. A matching baseball hat was jammed into the pocket; he pulled it out and shoved it onto his head, backwards, before putting on the jacket.

"Best hundred bucks I've spent all week," he told her, and a minute later he was an utterly generic delivery man, right up to the insulated vinyl pizza bag tucked under one arm.

Kate couldn't help it; she laughed, and was rewarded and completely thrilled to see the faint smile cross his mouth in response. It wasn't his normal grin, and it lacked his usual mischief, but she had hope.


End file.
